1. Field of the Invention
The invention is in the area of Swimming Devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Currently, prevalent Swimming Devices include a set of two Fins made of resilient material which have foot pockets or shoes as means of wearing them on the user's feet. The conventional swimming Fins currently in wide use are not suited for walking and are not ideal for swimming. It is almost impossible to walk freely with the Fins worn on the feet without stumbling. Thus, swimmers have to walk without them on the beach and to wear them near the water line. When in shallow water, swimmers have still to continue walking hitting underwater rocks and stumbling. Fins have large planar sections which are used to push the water in order to propel the swimmer. Since the orientation of the planar sections is approximately parallel to the soles of feet when fins are worn, the conventional fins create a substantial drag while swimming because the orientation of the feet soles and of the planar sections during swimming is not parallel to the water flow. In addition, the wide planar sections of the fins are mutually colliding while swimming. In order to prevent Fins' mutual collisions, the swimmers need to keep the legs wide apart, which is inconvenient posture both in swimming and in walking.
Several inventions attempted to solve the problem of walking while wearing fins, most of them proposed similar arrangements of retracting fins by turning them upwards in front or behind the calves. Each fin is pivoted on two hinges installed on the left and right sides of the foot and can be turned upwards for walking. When the fins are leveled in front of the feet they can be used for swimming. Such are the inventions of U.S. Pat. No. 5,108,327 to Klein, U.S. Pat. No. D561,862 of Moyal, U.S. Pat. No. 6,672,920 B2 to Wilson, U.S. Pat. No. 3,315,286 to Brion, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,268,927 to Makowitz. Other inventions propose other retracting solutions such as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,902 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,155,898 to Burns et al. which proposed a small retractable fin up front as an extension of the sole, or U.S. Pat. No. 8,678,870 B2 to Johnson, which propose a very complex structure worn on the feet and calves to carry the fins. Other inventions involve flexible folding in U.S. Pat. No. 2,903,719 to Wozencraft et al. or in U.S. Pat. No. 5,593,333 to Johnson which folds part of the fin under the foot. However, all the inventions mentioned above do not eliminate the problems of mutual Fins' collisions and of substantial drag while swimming.